Review Summary: The comic duo (?) Crotchduster delivers a funny, highly addicting and extremely good album worth listening to again and again.
Crotchduster is one of the weirdest bands you'll ever encounter. You got
Fornicus Fuckmouth" McFlappy doing guitars, vox & lyrical devastation. You got
Slippery Jim doing vox, destruction, touching & lyrical devestation. And finally -
Cain doing drums, touching, breathing loud, shedding and licking. Oh and by the way, Cain is a dog (litereally).
As far as I know, the men behind this band are
Jason Suecof and some other producer guy (I have absolutely no idea who). I'm assuming Suecof's dog, Cain doesn't actually play on the album - but hey, I wouldn't be suprised if he actually did.
The band exists "for one reason and one reason only: tax fraud". Why? Because metal sucks. It's "ridiculous and silly, and quite frankly beneath [them]". Cheating the government is the second best reason to make music (pussy being the best).
Bill Williams is a guy who, with his PhD in dumptruck mechanics, managed to make himself capable of inter-dimensional travel. Mr. Williams also happens to be an American and (naturally) a greedy capitalist. He found a dimension, which he insists on calling "Williamsburgland" and uses his ability to travel between dimensions to 'plunder' "Williamsburgland" by selling them "mammal sauce", a liquid as important to the people of "Williamsburgland" as water and petroleum is to us. You see, just before Williams found this dimension - they ran out of "mammal sauce", making this a classic case of demand waiting for a supply. The only thing outsiders like myself know about "mammal sauce" is that one of the most vital ingrediants are goat teeth. And luckily (for Williams), all the goats in "Williamsburgland" are extinct due to a shift in the atmospheric pressure, caused by the universe continuously expanding.
Crotchduster's part of this is - they make the liquid, and give it to Williams. Then he takes the liquid and his dumptruck, filled with (paying) tourists to Williamsburgland, where he sells the liquid for a ludicrous price. He takes 50% of the profits, and deposists Crotchduster's half in an inter-dimensional account. Why? The government can't trace money across dimensions. And to make it the perfect fraud, Jim, Fuckmouth and Cain formed Crotchduster. Now they just list "musician" as their occupation, and nobody asks any questions.
The lyrics on
Big Fat Box of Shit are written by Cain. Jim and Fuckmouth send him with Williams to "Williamsburgland", because Williams's brain's chemical balance gets fucked up during the inter-dimensional travels, and he goes mad. During his "episodes", Cain notes down whatever comes out of his mouth.
The recording technique they claim to use on this album is quite unique as well. It's supposed to be recorded with only one mic, and their multitrack is sixteen two track machines from 1957 synched together with a stopwatch and some telephone cord.
Most of the music is written by Jim and Fuckmouth, whilst Cain is the mixing expert - because he can hear frequencies that humans can't hear.
But jokes and gimmicks aside - this really is an unique album. Musically - it's like
Napalm Death going
Mr. Bungle style, but with heaps of parodies in between the hasty jumping between genres. (Yes that's right. Not "blending", but
jumping.) You'll find parodies of the vocal styles of
Glenn Danzig,
James Hetfield,
Phil Anselmo and
Tom Araya - to name a few. You'll find parodies and mocking of
Slayer,
Korn,
boyhitscar, Norwegian black metal, hair metal, grindcore, dance-pop, and so on.
The lyrics could easily be compared to
The Bloodhound Gang's. Crotchduster is just a tad more extreme. Admittedly, this is something you'll either love or hate. But know this - even though you think you'd get sick of all the toilet humour, this is catchier than you can imagine. It's genuinly impossible to not get hooked on the epic chorus of "Mammal Sauce". You'll probably be singing "
My mammal sauce is the best mammal sauce/spread mammal sauce on my wang/we make mammal sauce in Bill Williams loft/and we eat a bucket of tang" (yes, they just rhymed "
wang" with "
tang") for weeks, or at least listening to it.
But there's not only goofy humour in here. There's also some really clever lyrics, mocking various stuff. Like during the Norwegian black metal part of "Let Me into Starfish Land", where they mock the entire black metal genre with their ridiculous lyrics - "I love bunnies/I love pink/I love my moms underpants/especially when they stink/I love rainbows/I love balloons/I cried at Forrest Gump/and disney cartoons".
The melodies could be compared to, as mentioned before, Napalm Death going Mr. Bungle style - but with heaps of (self) irony. The worst thing you can possibly do, is try to take this album seriously. If you look up "serious" in the dictionary, it'll say (amongst other things) that "Crotchduster is the opposite of serious". But the duo (?) nevertheless prove to be brilliant composers. If you are familiar with Suecof's band
Capharnaum, you'll know that this guy is not only a more than capable producer and mixer (he's worked with
Canne,
Devildriver,
Chimaira and so on) - but also an excellent musician.
Another thing that makes this album so special, are all the skits that run throughout it. This is most evident on the 14:31 long album closer "Crotchopus". It starts out with the line "Dude, dirty asians who love Jewish dildos is gonna be on in 37 seconds. Turn on the TV now!", and they turn on the TV, where "Channel 75 Action News" with
Andrew Boytoucher is on. One thing leads to another, and Slippery Jim calls Williams (who gets upset because he was busy masturbating). They chat for a few secs, then there's some horrid death metal/groove/Muse-popish explosion thing for some seconds. Then Jim humps some chick (who gets upset because Jim finishes early), before we get some weird funk beat with the compulsory slapping of the bass... and - yeah. I could go on forever (this song goes through at least twenty-five styles or so). But back to my point - the skits.
During this song, they E.G. watch the trailer for a movie about the elves (now unionized!!!) rebelling against Santa - killing him loads of times in various different ways.
They'll also interrupt the song to read some hilarious fan (mostly hate) mail with this rad beat running in the background.
Hail Crotchduster!
You guys rule, except I don't like the parts of your songs that aren't metal.
I'm in a band too... we're called Hellspawn Warhammers of the Nordic Wind. We play pulverizing war metal mixed with barbaric hate. We just recorded our first demo, and we're gonna take over the world. I've sent you a copy, tell me what you think.
-Satanically Yours,
Kip Benson a.k.a. "Hatebringer"
To which they reply, after listening to about two seconds of the demo:
Dear Kip, you worthless retard.
You should maybe take up pottery, or perhaps woodworking, 'cause your band sucks. After the first ten seconds, Cain threw up twice. So we burned your CD and buried the ashes in the yard. It sounded like it was recorded in mono into a boombox that was inside a metal trash can.
Furhermore, everybody knows that black metal is for geeks that aren't even cool enough to play Dungeons & Dragons. You and your pals couldn't take over elementary school, let alone the world. No one is afraid of guys that wears make up. Please don't ever listen to our album again. We are embarassed you like us.
-Love
Crotchduster
They continue with numerous other letters. Including: a fan letter for Cain, a letter from some guy who's pissed off because they were too busy doing coke off of hookers' asses to sign his album (now he listens to Hellspawn Warhammers of the Nordic Wind instead), and a letter from a girl who thinks they should stop singing about anal sex - because it hurts (to which they reply: "
... a woman's job consists of anal, swallowing loads and shutting up - it says so in the Bible").
And these are just some of the weird skits that occur on this album. If I mentioned them all, I'd just spoil the fun for you.
Conclusion:
This is a unique album, unlike anything else I've ever heard and I seriously doubt I'll ever hear something like it in the future. From the immediately catchy opening riff, which reminds me a bit of
Godsmack, via the tons of skate punk, circus music, new age, spiritual music, traditional rock, symphonic metal etcthrash, death, grind, polka, rap, electronica, punk, gameshow music, and so on - to the big band "
We hope that you have enjoyed this Crochduster album" ending. The melodies are masterfully crafted, and the rapid genre jumps fit perfectly. Combining this with the concept lyrics and the at times very amusing skits, makes this a very special album with an amazing high replay value, considering its joky nature. This album mocks everything and nothing. And it does so in a masterful way.
Recommended tracks:
"Big Top Williams"
"Stars Ingenious Cooter (live)"
"Let Me into Starfish Land"
"Mammal Sauce"
